Large format printing and scaling to size

Forum|Forum|15 years ago
September 8, 2010
3 replies
58732 views

Hi all,

I've searched and cannot seem to find an answer.

I'm creating a Banner to go behind a stage for a press conference. The size is 7200 MM x 3300 MM which is too large for Illustrator to handle. So I'm working at 1/4 the size.

My background art is full size created in photoshop, but I scaled it in illustrator. Illustrator has a step and repeat pattern of the company logo on top of the background art.

Now my question is this, How do I generate a print ready PDF at full size? The files are going to be produced in Japan and I'm afraid there may be a language barrier if I ask them to print at 400%. I would prefer to send them a file where all they need to do is print it and not worry about it especially considering the time difference.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Chris

Print and publish

C

chardmont007

New Participant

Base on my experience I recommend you to finalize it in photoshop as actual size with 72 res just to be sure. as you said they will produce in Japan. put your self in safe side. AI for vector & line drawing. PSD for image.

Scott Falkner

Community Expert

EA Chris wrote:
Now my question is this, How do I generate a print ready PDF at full size?
Thanks in advance.
Chris

You don’t. Save your PDF at scale and let the printer scale it. Leave no doubt that your artwork is to scale and should be output at 400%.

A

Anonymous

I currently work for a Large Format Printer. Building files to a smaller scale (ie: Half Size, Quarter Size) is perfectly acceptable.

You should also be aware that the resolution of your raster images only need to be 72 DPI at final output size. So if you are building at half size, your images only need to be 144 DPI. If building at quarter size, the images would need to be 288 DPI.

A

Anonymous

Russell, large format inkjet's print stochastically using 72 lpi ( lines per inch ) which puts the image resolution at 144 ppi ( pixels per inch ) at 100%. This is not dpi ( dots per inch ) which is document's output resolution. My concern is the scaling of the image files in Illustrator. If the images were typicall 300 ppi image files and were scaled down to 25%; the result is 1200 ppi. Is this a big deal? It depends on the RIP. But, output resolution should also be taken into consideration if you applied any raster effects to the scaled down Illustrator file. Even if there weren't any, document / raster resolution should be around 2400 dpi for a final output resolution of around 600 dpi. These numbers should be applied to whatever method will be used to create the final .pdf file.